Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Swim with the Sharks

When
I was young, I was afraid of the water.Perhaps
it was because I saw the movie JAWS when I was 10 years old. It scared me so
much that I couldn’t even walk into a bathroom without wondering if a shark might
come up through the plumbing to attack me. As you can imagine, the thought of going
swimming in the ocean was out of the question.

That
same summer, my aunt took my younger cousin and me to a beach in Martha’s
Vineyard in Massachusetts. I worked up the courage to wade into the water.There was a sandbar that allowed me to walk out
about 37 yards from shore and still only be knee deep in the water. I was talking to a few of the local kids about
my fear of sharks when one of them told me that JAWS was filmed in the very
waters we were standing in. Fear filled
my chest and, in my head, it was as if I could actually hear the theme music
from JAWS playing.I couldn’t move.

At
that moment, I saw a school of fish swimming by and my heart began to race.As I tried to run back towards the beach, I
thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, because it looked like the fish were
miniature sharks circling all around me.It turned out they were sand sharks, which are basically harmless, but
the memory kept me out of the water for years.

A
few years ago, I was giving a speech at the Iacocca Institute at Lehigh
University and met a young man from Egypt who also had a fear of the water –
although his story is very different from mine.His name is Mahmoud, and he grew up in a small town about four hours
from Cairo. As a child, Mahmoud’s
parents had warned him about the dangers of the water, and that he should stay
away from it.This message was
tragically embedded in his head when his cousin died in a drowning accident. But Mahmoud was not going to let any of this deter
him. Instead, he decided that he needed to learn to swim.

At
15, Mahmoud got the opportunity to travel to America and enroll in High School
in Ann Arbor, Michigan.Although he had
never been in a swimming pool, he asked the swim coach to teach him how to
swim.Within weeks, he was on the team
and had started to believe he could accomplish anything. It took seven weeks
before he learned to do a flip-turn without swallowing water, but Mahmoud found
a new passion in swimming.

After
graduation, Mahmoud returned to Cairo to attend college and immediately joined
the varsity swim team. Over the years he became a very strong swimmer, and even
helped his team win the league championship. But overcoming his fear of swimming would
prove to have an even higher purpose. One day, while Mahmoud was walking along the
shore of the Nile River, he saw a little boy who had wandered too far into the
water and was drowning. Without any
hesitation, Mahmoud dove in, fully clothed, and saved the boy’s life.Afterward, he cried actual tears of joy as he
realized the true power of overcoming his fears.

Last
week, my wife and I went to hear Dr. Wayne Dyer give a talk. Before he began,
he greeted several people standing in front of us. A woman with cancer approached and asked Dr.
Dyer how he had gotten through his own battle with cancer. He said, “They didn’t cure me of my cancer,
they cured me of my fear. Where there is
fear, there is no love. Where there is
love, there is no fear. There is only
love or fear, and it’s up to each of us to choose wisely.”

What
fears are holding you back from living your dreams?Stop thinking about how things are and start
imagining how they could be. As Walt
Disney once said, “All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to
pursue them.” Sometimes all it takes is dipping
your foot in the pool, and sometimes you have to dive in. Either way, it’s time to realize that every
dream you have resides on the other side of fear. Now turn off the JAWS theme playing in your
head; it’s safe to get back in the water.

Until Next Week…

Live Your Dreams!

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Scott Shickler

About me

Scott is one of the world’s leading experts on youth empowerment and entrepreneurship. The Wall Street Journal referred to him as a serial and parallel entrepreneur due to the number of businesses he started in diverse industries. Collectively his companies have grossed over $37 million with businesses ranging from software to seminars and real estate to restaurants. Shickler is the author or coauthor of 8 books including, The Ultimate Entrepreneur and The 7 Mindsets to Live Your Ultimate Life. Scott also wrote the Boy Scout Merit Badge booklet on entrepreneurship. He has been featured on CNN, ABC & NBC News, and in The New York Times. Shickler is currently the CEO and founder of Excent Corporation – a multi-million dollar education company serving millions of students and educators throughout the world. Scott grew up in New York and now lives in Atlanta with his wife and two sons. He is a graduate of Fordham University and also the cofounder of the Magic Wand Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to empowering youth to live their dreams.